A network consists of nodes and links. A large network consists of millions of such nodes and links for the purpose of transporting information among and provisioning of services to network users/subscribers. To satisfy such requirement, the network needs to be managed such that all nodes and links perform their functions as designed and planned.
In a network, the nodes (e.g. Network Element-1 (NE-1), Network Element-A (NE-A) of FIG. 2) may be packet data switches (physical nodes) or software processes (applications) that perform a function. The links (e.g. NEs of FIG. 2) may be microwave links, submarine cables or simply representation of logical connections among nodes. In a cellular network, the nodes may be radio base stations, handsets etc and the links may be radio links, logical connections of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), etc.
Further in a network, there are nodes that are not responsible for transporting information or provisioning of service for network user/subscribers. These nodes (e.g. Network Manager (NM) and Domain Manager (DM) of FIG. 2) manage the network. They install, configure and supervise the nodes and links. They monitor the network and if the network performance falls below some planned threshold, the network managers then initiate a recovery plan involving, for example, reconfigure the nodes, reconfigure user call routes, deactivate faulty nodes and activate backup nodes etc.
The network management architecture (i.e. organization of the NMs, DMs and NEs are subject of various international standardization bodies and organizations such as ITU-T, 3GPP, 3GPP2 and IETF. All these network management architectures share one basic principle in that the (real) nodes and (real) links are represented by software modules. The collection of the software modules is called Management Information Base (MIB) and is stored and maintained in DMs. Each software module, representing the actual node or link, is called Managed Object Instances (MOIs). The collection of MOIs (i.e. the MID) is a virtual reality of the real nodes and links under management. Applications running in NMs and/or DMs would then manage (supervise and control) the real nodes and links by accessing and manipulating the MOIs.
The organization of the MOIs and the information contained in each MOI are based on a schema. Various international standard bodies publish these so-called schema or network resource model or object model.
In prior art, the MIB, which is a collection of software objects, called MOI, representing managed network resources, managed by DM (see MIB of DM-1 of FIG. 2) is based on the definition of a defined schema. This schema (or schema definition) cannot change at run time. Or put in another way, the MIB is a collection of MOIs that are instantiated (created) based on the definition of a schema. Such kind of MIB is large. When compared to smaller MIB, large MIB is more difficult to maintain in that:                It takes more time to synchronize the information hold in the MIB with real network status        It needs more processing power to satisfy MIB data retrieval, MIB data modification and MIB information search requests, from MIB users        It contains info that some users do not want and this necessitates these users to apply filter to information retrieved from the MIB. Filter processing takes time.        
A schema is the data definition of a Managed Information Base (MIB). This definition is for all NEs classes and their relations. The definitions has to support all operational contexts and users (field engineer, network planners, head office operational staff, etc). Prior art schema cannot change at run time. As a consequence, the MIB which is an instantiation of all NEs of the managed network based on the schema definition would be large because it supports twenty-four hours availability seven days a week:                for all kinds of network management data to satisfy all kinds of users; and,        for the entire network.        